'Til Morning

From then on I steered clear of Peter Barry. He seemed to get the hint; in fact, I rarely ever saw him anymore except in the lunch line. Even then, he didn’t bother trying to strike up a conversation. He just grinned like always and continued on his merry way. It was as if our last meeting in the hallway had changed the way he felt about hanging around me.

Autumn faded into winter and before I knew it, January was here. Teachers began making study schedules for mid-year exams in February and students were just buckling down into the busiest month of the winter sport season.

And this was also the month when I learned exactly what was wrong with Peter Barry.

Incidentally, I learned it from his foster sister, Melanie Tinker. She was a quiet and tiny freshman girl with a high, lilting voice that sounded more like wind chimes than a high school girl speaking. It annoyed me at first but eventually I got used to it. Melanie turned out to have been sitting behind me in Spanish class since September. I just never had any reason to notice her until now.

I was surprised to learn that Peter was part of a foster family. Apparently it was him, Melanie, and two other little boys named Josh and Micah. The couple that had adopted them, the Coys, were never around very much. According to Melanie, though, (who seemed keen on telling the poor boy’s entire life story to me, of all people) it was a hell of a lot better from where Peter originated. His birth father left before he was even born and his birth mother committed suicide when he was only nine years old. It was only a few months after that fateful day when Peter’s first signs of mental illness began to kick in. He was "officially" labeled as a lunatic (meaning: the word was tossed around casually by peers and classmates alike, but nobody was entirely sure of it because nobody had taken him to be diagnosed by a professional) when he was fourteen after he tried to jump off of a ten-story building in an attempt to fly.

The next thing Melanie told me put his life into perspective: his mother had always told him the Peter Pan story to put him to bed. The story was one of his mother’s favorites; in fact, that was his namesake. As it turned out, the story had a bigger effect on his mind than it should have and Peter took it to heart.

I had asked Melanie how she knew all of this private information and she happily told me that Peter had told her years ago. They were best friends and so he trusted her with that information. When I asked her if she was allowed to tell me such private things, she said no and that it didn’t matter.

“Why doesn’t it matter?” I asked her in class the day she explained it all to me.

She looked at me for a moment, silently drinking in my face, before answering. “You don’t seem like the type to judge people. You seem...safe. Understanding.” Melanie twiddled her thumbs under her desk. “I know this all probably seems like a lot to take in, but I figured I’d tell you so you know...I mean, Peter’s mentioned you at home before. He seems to really like you.”

“You’re saying, for Peter’s sake, I have a right to know?” I clarified.

Melanie nodded. “Yeah, I guess that is what I’m saying.” She paused.

A few minutes later, she continued on about Peter. “He projected all of his mother’s stories and ideas into his real life. He figured that since his mom loved Peter Pan so much, it would be like a tribute to her. But it got worse, took over his mind, and destroyed him. He thinks that his mom committed suicide because he wasn’t Peter Pan, and so now he thinks he can make up for it by becoming him.”

I looked away, breaking her hardened gaze on me. I didn’t want to know any of this. I didn’t want to hear this. Why was she unloading all of Peter’s secrets on me? What did I do to deserve easing his burden, making my own life so entangled in his? I hated it.

And yet, the deeper into Peter’s life I fell, the more I enjoyed the fall.